AS History Essay on the Persecution of the Jews

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AS History – Essay on the Persecution of the Jews

To what extent is it accurate to say that the persecution of the Jews in Germany steadily intensified in the years 1933-42?

The question of whether or not the persecution of the Jewish race has had a steady intensification relates closely to whether you adopt an intentionalist or structuralist view point on this historical event. An intentionalist will claim that the process of persecuting Jews in Germany is a planned sequence and was outlined by the Nazi Party; they claim that the roots of Hitler’s politics was about eliminating the Jewish race from Germany and that evidence can be found in Mein Kampf. On the other hand, structuralist historians will claim that the persecution of the Jews was never planned and it was improvised all the way through to the Holocaust; furthermore, they will state that the Nazi’s did not come to power based on policies towards the Jews as the electorate was never as enthusiastic as Hitler was about this.

In the year 1933, the Boycott of Jewish businesses and professional offices, the exclusion of Jews from civil service as well as the Quota for non-Aryan students occurred serving the purpose of isolating the Jews from the Aryan race. Reasons for such a policy also have to do with the Nazi’s hatred or perhaps jealousy of many of the Jews being able to take up leading positions in the upper class society whilst they only made up of 1% of the German population. For example, 10% of all doctors were Jewish. Also, the act of isolation meant citizens would have less chances of coming into contact with the Jews thus increasing the chances of them buying into the propaganda. Furthermore, a policy was laid out preventing non-Aryans to inherit farms. Intentionalist claims that the whole process was perfectly planned involving stages which would lead to the Holocaust. Those stages were the identification, isolation, violence and extermination of the Jews. This event can therefore be seen as an attempt of the initial processes to isolate the Jews. They will also claim that events such as only allowing farms to be passed on to Aryans was for later purposes of war and the extermination of Jews thus the farms were to be safer in Aryan hands to guarantee farmers will not rebel.

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However, structuralist can counter such an argument by claiming that it was plain improvisation. This is because no one would have expected the separation of Jews to result in a mass extermination. Also, the German people did not fully support such policies; an example would be that during the Boycott of Jewish businesses and professional offices, many of the local people ignored the boycott and continued conducting businesses with Jewish people. Furthermore, the claim about only allowing Aryans to inherit farms for war purposes can be countered as Hitler took an official line of guaranteeing peace, not war to ...

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